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HEAD COACH MARK MARQUESSOpening comments
"It was a great game for us. We really swung the bats well, and we had good pitching performances. I was very pleased with our play in the entire Regional. I don't think we made an error in any of the three games, and we hit the ball well. The thing we did well today was getting hits and baserunners. When you score 17 runs, you should win."

On North Carolina State
"I was very impressed with North Carolina State. They are a very dangerous offensive team."

On Stanford's 2006 season
"It's been a long season in some ways. There have been a lot of peaks and valleys, but it really has come together here at the end. I'm really proud of this group and how they have bounced back after some tough times."

On Stanford peaking
"At one stage, we were in 3-9 in the Pac-10 and way in last place. We've played very well for about the last 20-25 games. There's no question we played our best baseball over the last third of the season regardless of what we would have done here."

SOPHOMORE OUTFIELDER MICHAEL TAYLOROn Stanford's offense
"Right now, we're really confident as an offense. We've felt that for the last couple of weeks we have had ability to explode for some runs."

On today's game
"We knew about North Carolina State's offense, and we knew it was going to be a dog fight. We knew we had to keep the pedal to the floor and keep grinding for some runs and not let them get comfortable with coming back. We wanted to come back and score some runs and have them have to keep coming out of a hole. That was really important for us."

On his two-run homer in the top of the eighth
"I was just looking for a pitch up and in, and he threw it there. I got a good swing on it, and I was lucky enough to hit the ball hard enough to get it out of the park."

SENIOR SHORTSTOP CHRIS MINAKEROn a possible Super Regional matchup with Pac-10 foe Oregon State
"Oregon State's an incredible team. They won our conference this year for the second year this row. They have an incredible pitching staff top to bottom and one of the best I've seen in the last few years. You combine that with the fact that their ballpark is an incredibly tough place to play with the crowd and the strong support they get, and it's going to be a challenge. But, at this point in the year, no matter who you match up with in the Super Regional, it's going to be a challenge because everyone at this point is playing great baseball. We're going to have to swing the bats well."

On Stanford's 2006 regular season series at Oregon State
"We put up one run in three games, and that's obviously not going to get the job done if we want to go to Omaha. So, we're going to have to swing the bats well, and continue to pitch and play defense. But, the one thing we need to do against them is hit."